Inspired by one of P0ck3tf0x's prompts on Tumblr: 96. "I brought you an umbrella"
Harold feels the rain on his neck as he limps through the cemetery, but doesn't make a move to adjust his collar. The droplets running down his spine are the least of his worries. His medication is wearing off and it's a bad pain day. They've all been bad days since he lost John.
The grave is a long walk from where he parked, and he's been using a cane since he got out of the hospital, so it's slow progress, but eventually he makes it to a plain white headstone in the rows of identical plain white headstones.
John Tallis
Sgt
US Army
May 4 1968
November 13 2015
The final date was wrong, but he'd wanted to protect John's name and his record from being associated with Detective John Riley and the Man in the Suit. John's memory was worth protecting. He thinks about the first time they met, how close he was to this, what the Machine had told him would have happened if they never met. Stood by the headstone and the empty coffin buried beneath his feet, Harold is reminded of Theresa Whitaker and her empty grave, so long ago, so close after they first met (and he's not naive enough to think John might have had the luck to be spared). He thinks about all the people they saved and the people they failed. The people he failed. He thinks about the amount of people who've died for his mistakes, starting with Nathan and moving on from there.
He doesn't know how long he's stood there, lost in memory, but it's long enough for the rain to have soaked through his coat and suit to drench his skin.
He hears footsteps in the grass behind him, just heavy enough for him to be able to hear them. They're slightly uneven, a slight limp but one not as pronounced as his own. He hoped that, with the weather, he'd be lucky enough to avoid other mourners. The footsteps stop just behind him, and he feels the other person's presence.
"I brought you an umbrella," the voice behind him is gentle. Harold stiffens for a second; the man sounds so much like John, but that isn't possible. He'd heard those last words, he still feels the echoes of the explosion in his bones. "Looked like you needed it. You'll catch something stood out here in the rain like this, you know."
It has to be a hallucination, some kind of adverse effect of the medication he's taking for his stomach wound, maybe caused by the mixture of that and the painkillers he takes for his back. In his experience, if something seems too good to be true, it always is. It has to be a concerned stranger, just somebody who's seen him out of the corner of their eye.
"I'm fine," he says dismissively, not looking up.
"You've got a bullet hole in your gut, Harold. That isn't fine." He stops feeling the rain against his skin and a shadow falls over him. "You're shivering."
You can't be here. You died.
"I suppose I've been out here longer than I thought." He straightens, white knuckled grip on the handle of his cane as he feels the presence behind him get into his space the way John had always done.
He turns his head best he can and glances upwards, half expecting John to vanish now he's looked.
There are a few new scars on that handsome, familiar face, and he's frowning, brows knitted together, the expression leaving a few new lines of worry across his face, but overall, he looks like John. Sounds like John. Now he's so close Harold can even tell he smells like John, gunpowder and his favourite aftershave, the one Harold had commented on once and he'd worn ever since.
"I should have found you sooner. You've never been an easy man to locate, Finch," he says, raising an eyebrow. "But if you didn't want to get caught, you probably shouldn't have come here."
"You of all people should know I'm not often sentimental, Mr Reese, and it rarely turns out well when I am," he sighs softly. "But for you I thought I could make an exception. John Tallis died heroically, trying to prevent the bomb that was launched so recently, the CIA's case file on John Reese and NYPD's on John Riley are finally shut. Harold Whistler, on the other hand, is wanted by the government for treason, and there's no Machine to help me hide from them. New York is no longer safe for me."
"So this isn't just a social visit?"
Harold swallows. "It was supposed to be a goodbye." He finally turns, looking up at him with glistening eyes behind the rain-spotted lenses of his glasses. "I'm… I'm sorry I couldn't save you, John."
John tilts his head. "Harold, you did, a hundred times every day since we met."
Any hallucination of Harold's wouldn't be so nice to him. He turns stiffly to face John, rubbing his hands together to try and get some feeling back into them. Harold reaches for him, feeling the familiar material on John's coat beneath his hands, the collar of his shirt, the faint stubble on his neck, fingers moving up until he was cupping John's cheek. "You're here."
He smiles, a genuine, cheeky smile that lights up his whole face for once, instead of stopping just short of his eyes.
"Always, Mr Finch," he says, mirroring that familiar phrase Harold has always said to him.
Harold pulls him close until their faces are at about the same height, almost touching, and he can feel the spokes of umbrella is brushing against the top of his head. John is clearly fighting to keep his expression neutral, the amusement still clear in his eyes.
Harold does his best to frown despite feeling like he's going to explode with happiness and relief, and speaks in the sternest voice he can muster: "Don't you ever do this to me again, Mr Reese."
John nods.
"Do you understand?"
"I swear, Harold."
"Good," he says quietly, then lets his facade fall and closes the rest of the distance between them, holding him tightly. John rests his forehead against his and Harold can feel the fresh scars pressing into his skin. His chin is rough with stubble like he hasn't shaved today but that's the last of Harold's concern as their lips press together like they were never apart. He tastes the same.
John's arms finally wrap around him; he's warm and dry unlike Harold, but Finch feels the rain in his hair again as John gives up drops the umbrella.
"I couldn't die yet," he breathes as their lips finally part. "Call me selfish, but I couldn't leave this behind."
"Come with me," Harold says softly.
"Where?"
"I'm going to Italy, to be with Grace. Come with me."
He frowns slightly. "I'm not sure-"
He rests his hand against John's cheek again. "It won't be the same without you."
"If you're sure Grace won't mind."
"She'll love you," he says gently, sweeping a stray strand of hair out of John's face. "I love you."
John seems to melt into Harold's touch. "Okay. I'll come with you. I'll come."
He pulls him in for another kiss. After all the years Harold has been falling, life is finally looking up.
There's a letter waiting at Lionel's desk when he gets into work after meeting Shaw for breakfast, which is unusual in itself.
Lionel sits down, puts on his glasses and examines the letter more closely. His name and address are handwritten. They're in a handwriting he doesn't recognise, but not just printed in the style of handwriting like certain crap he's got in the past. He opens the envelope, slightly nervous as to what might be inside, but there's just a single piece of paper. One side is blank, and he flips it over to see a photo. Three people; John, Finch and Grace Hendricks, all stood together, Finch in the middle with his arms around the other two. John's hair seems more grey than it was, and he's got a couple of nasty looking scars across his forehead and temple, but it's him. There's only one significant difference to them that he can see; for the first time since he'd met them, they both look genuinely, uncompromisingly happy.
He smiles and shakes his head, sliding the photo back in the envelope and dropping it into the top drawer of his desk. "Sons of bitches."